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Scott Taylor: New assault rifles finally on order for Canadian military

Expenditure helps meet defence spending goal

On March 19, just ahead of the federal government’s fiscal year deadline of March 31, the Department of National Defence announced a major purchase of new assault rifles for the Canadian Army.

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The $307-million price tag for the first batch of what are known as Canadian modular assault rifles (CMARs) will help push last year’s defence spending to the NATO alliance’s goal of two per cent of gross domestic product.

Close observers of the Canadian military will know that although former prime minister Stephen Harper had promised at a NATO summit in 2014 to reach two per cent of GDP on defence spending, that goal was never met. In fact, under the Harper government defence spending dipped below one per cent.

Following the election of the Justin Trudeau Liberals in 2015, additional funding was allocated to the Defence Department. However, at the start of the 2025-2026 fiscal year, it only planned to spend 1.3 per cent of GDP on national defence.

That was before the inauguration to a second term for U.S. President Donald Trump. To justify a tariff war and support his threats of annexing Canada into becoming his 51st state, Trump bemoaned a lack of border security and highlighted our “shirking” when........

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